Hello everyone, I want to describe a bit of my work as a thesis student in the School of Anthropology of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV). I do my final pre-grade research for Archaeology and Historical Anthropology Department, my advisor is Professor Luis Molina and I’m developing my research under theoretical and methodological guidelines offered by the called “Historical Archaeology Of The Modern World”, the tentative title is “Historical Archaeology in Santo Tomé de Guayana site)” (Venezuela – Bolivar state).

With the analysis of data from a small collection my interest is to know a little about the socio-economic relationships that may have occurred at this site and check if post-colonial populations coexisted with Local/Indigenous and European groups as suggested by the ceramic evidence. On the site two military fortifications were built, San Francisco de Asís (1675) and San Diego (1749), presumably were made to protect the slopes of the Orinoco river and in some time from defense of the constant attacks of Dutch explorers who tried to settle in the territory to explore and search the famous El Dorado. Apparently the social interaction in this place was a very complex relationship between these various groups under very difficult geopolitical conditions. According historiography, people who inhabited this site and its surroundings before the eighteenth century and then during the colonial period remained until the nineteenth century after the independence movement. The fortifications had a couple of renovations and one rescue excavation in the 1980’s of which was extracted materials with which to do my research today. Now the place is a tourist spot that I would like to invite you to visit.

At this stage of my work each day I write about the research and performed the analysis of ceramic fragments from the XVII, XVIII and XIX centuries and local pottery of the same age and even more antique, using catalogs and text resources relating to archaeology in Venezuela, especially about the Lower Orinoco.

I hope to soon complete my research and obtain very interesting results in this respect. Greetings to all my partners archaeologists from around the world and thank you to all people who feel interest and appreciation for our work.